The present invention relates to cooling of ingots such as slab ingots as they are rolled, or about to be rolled, or as they leave a mold as a continuous casting. Generally speaking, the invention relates to cooling of an ingot at some point or points located downstream from a mold for continuous casting, such point or points may be located even in the range of the rolling mill that further processes the ingot.
From a different point of view, the invention relates to the cooling of ingots which are being moved by roller tracks and having a temperature requiring cooling.
Cooling a casting as it emerges from the mold is a prerequisite for further processing and particularly for completing the solidification as rapidly as possible. Usually, one will spray a coolant, e.g. water towards and onto the casting. German printed patent application No. 2,208,988 discloses equipment for this purpose. It is also known to convert the water into a fine mist prior to application as a coolant. See, e.g. the handbook by E. Hermann "Handbuch des Stranggiessens", pages 188 and 189. The German Patent No. 2,165,944 discloses also to blast a liquid-gas mixture at a high pressure transversely to the direction of casting and in-between the gaps of the widthdrawal rollers for the casting.
All these known methods and apparatus are disadvantaged by the fact that cooling is not uniform. The surface of the ingot is in parts shielded by the withdrawal rollers so that in any instant specific portions of the ingot are not being actively cooled by the sprayed on coolant because cooling has, in fact, been locally interrupted. A certain heat transfer will occur into the engaging rollers, but these rollers will become hot accordingly so that the heat flow into them is rather low. A remedy here is to cool the rollers internally, but still, cooling of the ingot is rendered non-uniform by its engagement with the rollers.